Not as a Bundle but in Pieces
by Albert Scoot
Summary: Pieces of what I have on the brain. Some stories will likely be told over numerous chapters.
1. Of Toads and Ravenclaws

**Disclaimer: All IPs belong to their respective owners.**

_If I'd known the only thing making my life miserable was the Dursleys I'd have run off years ago._

Life is finally good for Harry Potter even if people keep staring at me. I'll be away from the Dursleys for the next few months and I could do magic. My mum and dad weren't drunks who died in a car crash; they were heroes who fought the bad guys! Today was turning out even better. I got to eat some candy and made a friend even if his pet rat is kind of gross. Life is good for Harry Potter.

"Have any of you seen a toad. Neville's lost Trevor."

It may have been how the light from the window behind her created a halo around her bushy brown hair, the shock at being disturbed when she slammed the door open or maybe all the candy he'd eaten but Harry thought the girl who broke into his and Ron's sanctuary looked kind of pretty in a way that was hard to describe. Harry turned to look to Ron who shook his head.

"Uh, haven't seen a toad lately."

"That's alright I'll just ask one of the prefects to help us find it. I'm sure their meeting is over by now. I'm Hermione Granger."

"This is my friend Ron Weasley and I'm…"

"Harry Potter, I know. Everyone's talking about it on the train. You're in a lot of books. Your mum wrote our first year Charms textbook and some of the Potion book you know. It wasn't easy to figure out but the pseudonym was kind of obvious. Could you sign them, I'm a big fan and not much of her work was published. When are you going to publish the rest of her research on the effects of Charms in treating cancer?"

"Uh"

"What about your dad's work on lasting transfiguration? I couldn't understand a lot of it but I'm sure it'll be easier to grasp after a few years of schooling. I'm a muggleborn you know so there's a lot I don't really understand yet."

"I'm a pureblood like Ron's family!"

At Neville's outburst Harry and Ron snapped out of their daze. Neville flushed from the attention he was receiving when Ron had a wicked idea.

"Hey, Neville why don't I help you look for your toad while Harry and Hermione stay here to talk about books."

Ron didn't look back or even give Neville a chance to answer as he was pulled out of the compartment, away from all things bookish, bushy haired and barmy.

_"Ravenclaw for sure, that one. Boy who lived or not, I'm not going down with that ship. He's the boy who lived, I'm sure he'll be fine."_

"So Neville, what do you think the Cannon's chances are this year?"

"They'll turn it around mid-season?"

"Good man, my dad always said you could trust a Longbottom. I learned this spell to turn my rat yellow…"

_Back in the compartment._

"Did my mum really write our Charms book?"

Having found it easier to just go along with the pushy girl Harry had agreed to sign her books as long as she told him more about his parents.

"Yeah and a few others but this is the only one I know of in our curriculum. You really didn't know?"

"I lived with my aunt and uncle. They don't like magic much. Hagrid told me on my birthday I was a wizard. I thought it was a prank until I realized the Dursleys are too daft to make a good joke."

"I wouldn't have found out until this year either except my sister got her letter a few years ago."

Harry was sure he was having déjà vu when the door slammed open again to reveal Hermione's older clone.

"You badmouthing me to the new kids already squirt; I could feel my ears burn half a train away."

"As I was saying this is my sister Emma, fifth year Ravenclaw prefect."

_"Sister."_

"Blimey, you're Harry Potter aren't you?"

"Don't be rude Emma! Honestly, you're a prefect now you should at least try to live up to your responsibilities."

"Don't give me any lip or I'll give you detention. You still owe me for telling mum and dad I snuck out."

"You hid the books."

"They're my textbooks and it's not my fault you couldn't think of checking the locked trunk in the attic. We had company, remember?"

"How was I supposed to check a locked trunk?"

Emma smirked for a moment, "You weren't."

_"Take that you bloody swot."_

Harry just watched the back and forth banter and looked on as Hermione growled and looked as if she were about to lunge at her sister.

"Uh uh, respect the badge. You wouldn't want to have detention before you're even sorted would you?"

Hair frizzling, Hermione stood and walked out the compartment, "I'm going to look for a lost toad as apparently not all prefects live up to their positions, humph."

Harry thought Hermione looked resolute and inspiring as she held her head high as she walked down the train at least until her sister yelled out.

"See if you can find something to pull the stick out of your arse too."

Hermione's screech filtered through the compartment door even after the Ravenclaw prefect had closed it.

"Uh"

"You're an articulate bloke aren't ya? With the way Hermione goes on and on and on about your mum, "The Great Lily Potter," **Brightest Witch of Her Generation** and an example to muggleborn everywhere, proving that all that Pureblood bigotry is hogwash, I'd have expected you to be a little more, well you know. You've got your mum's eyes so that's something at least."

A little unnerved and confused Harry nonetheless brought up something that was bothering him a little.

"Is Hermione going to be ok?"

"Yeah, why?"

"She seemed really mad."

"No siblings, right. Don't worry about it she'll be in be in a snit for a while and cool then off. I love my sister dearly but she's such a pain in the ass sometimes, you know. Don't let her whole bookish thing fool you, that little minx always gets her way at home and she's not above breaking a few rules when it suits her. Regardless, nice to meet you Harry Potter. Sorry if my sister and I bothered you."

"No, it's… ok…"

Having finally come down from all the commotion Harry got a good look at Emma Granger and realized something he'd overlooked. She was so beautiful, wavy brown hair loosely coming down her shoulders soft eyes. He was having a hard time comparing the feeling to that one time he found one of Vernon's magazines buried among the Petunias. However during these self-thought he'd completely missed what her lips were asking.

"Yes, I mean yeah of course."

"Wow, you're a lot nicer than I thought. You'd really ask the hat to put you in the same house as Hermione to look out for her if I can't? Maybe pureblood chivalry isn't dead after all Mr. Potter, thanks. I'll see you later kid."

Harry was once again too stunned for words and missed Emma as she leaned in. He did however recover in time to feel her kiss his cheek. As Emma walked out of the compartment yelling after Hermione Harry wondered how she got her hips to sway like that and what she meant about a hat.


	2. Ice-Cream Trips and Heels

Sometimes it was difficult to keep it all together, though her life had been that way since she could remember. If it wasn't her attempts at keeping her face looking consistent it was learning that everyone in the family other than her mum and dad were evil. She didn't really believe it until she found out her mum was related to the Malfoys. She stopped looking into their genealogy after reading up on her aunts and uncles. Sirius was still a sore spot to her mum.

What really threw her in was a normal Saturday afternoon in muggle London where she was trying this new ice-cream place with her mum the summer after her second year. In retrospect it wasn't that unusual that she was a clumsy. Her body constantly changed on her, her hormones did not help at all. However, personally she believed it was her name that made her clumsy. Being named Nymphadora Tonks had to cause some kind of magical damage, right? It's what she preferred to blame anyway.

"It's a perfectly respectable name, Dora."

"I'm not even going to try to say how bad your definition of respectable has to be for _that_ name to be respectable, mum"

Her mum just sighed and stirred her tea in that way she always did when they had that conversation, again. Her main victory was that her mum had decided to follow dad in calling her Dora, in public at least.

As she rose to get another scoop of whatever was in that bitchin' chocolate vanilla swirl she neglected to take care standing up and she clocked the woman at the next table with her glass ice cream thing in the head. She only wished she'd been that fortunate in the fight with her roommate the month before.

"What the bloody hell is wrong with you! You clumsy oaf, oh my god! I have a bruise on my forehead, on my forehead! It's huge, I can read it's "Made in China". I have writing on my forehead that says I was Made in China! AAAAAAHH!"

Tonks was sure that her mum would have whipped out her wand by now if she'd been at Fortescue's but she wasn't and knew her muggle ice cream trips were over for the foreseeable future. Foreseeable being until she got to her dad when her mum wasn't around and turned on the eyes, being an only child and a metamorphmagus was nice sometimes. It wasn't nice at the moment as her hold on her face had a tendency to waver when she freaked, like now.

"Marie, darling, what's wrong?"

"Look at my face! I look like a rejected porcelain doll!"

"Oh dear, that won't do. There's no way we can cover up all that for the shoot."

I just kept looking back and forth between the uppity chick with the bowling ball on her head and the broad with the glasses and backed up a little when she started staring at me. I was not hiding behind my mum because I was scared, ok!

"Oi, back off or I'll give you one too!"

"I'm so sorry about this. My daughter is a bit of a klutz, is there anything I can do to make this up to you."

I always hated when this happened. The day would be going great but I would inevitably screw it up somehow and mum and dad would have to fix it. I hated seeing my mum and dad grovel to make the problem go away. It was my fault, it was always my fault. Listening to them try to fix what I caused was always so much worse than whatever punishment my mum gave me afterward. Being grounded only gave me time to cry by myself for whatever I'd done wrong, again. Like that time in elementary school when I got suspended for kicking that one kid in the bollocks or painting the neighbors' cat when the kids next door made fun of my pink hair. Mum and dad were perfect it was my fault, it really always was. While my mum kept groveling, the creepy woman with glasses kept looking at me.

_"Oh Merlin! Did I morph something weird on my face?"_

I searched in my mum's bag and looked at myself with her compact and saw, well nothing too bad. I looked a lot like the bimbo I smashed into but without bump on my forehead and I had pink hair, again.

"I was a fashion designer for many years, still am sometimes but I mainly work shoots for fashion magazines your daughter is close to what I want for today's shoot. Seeing as your daughter has destroyed the only model we have for today's shoot I don't suppose you could let us borrow her for a few hours. How old is she anyway, 16?"

_"Shite!"_

"No, she actually turned 13 last week."

Mum was giving me the eye. The one that said I was in so much trouble that even dad wouldn't be able to bail me out. My mum could always make me feel like I'm 6 again with my arm stuck in in the jar of candy. I still stand by my assessment that she spelled the jar to get smaller just to catch me at it. I looked at myself closer in the compact and yeah I looked older, taller, Frencher and hot with pink hair. Not much for tits though, stupid bird could have at least had some nice ones.

"I don't know. I mean yes we'd love to help but Dora's not exactly the most graceful person for this sort of work."

It stung a little to hear it from mum but she was right. I mean, what did I know about fashion? I wasn't about to wear a frilly dress either no matter how many people I bonked in the head.

"Oh, pish posh, she'll be fine. It doesn't really take much brain-space to stand there and look pretty. I mean she's doing it right now with those pretty eyes and stubborn pouty lips. She's a natural, and today's shoot pays well. I'm sure there's some nice designer wear in it for the mum as well."

Oh, no. Mum was going to say yes. I could tell, bloody dad and his bloody muggle things. Mum, loved the whole girls fashion muggle crap. She was always watching them on the telly or reading some magazine about it. This was worse than the ballet fiasco. At least the French bitch was on my side. She looked pissed.

"Madame, this was my shoot!"

"Yes it _was_ your shoot. I told you not to wander off before shooting and now look at you. You've got Made in China on your forehead. I suppose we could shoot your photos like that anyway and make some statement about the state of the fashion industry and say it was your idea."

"Why I never!"

"No, you didn't. Go home Marie and try to clean yourself up a bit."

My last hope for the day walked out in a huff and got stopped on the way out to pay her tab. Bitch had to come back for her purse too.

"This is why I prefer hiring locals, at least they're not French."

That's how I started living this mess. It started with just still shots for the magazine. I got scouted a few days after the release by some middle-ranked agency. I ended up agreeing because mum said I couldn't… Bloody Slytherins always picking on the Puffs with their tricks! Bet that she tricked dad into marrying her too, not that the poor sod cares. It worked out ok. I worked mostly during summers and the very occasional weekend during the school year. The first two summers weren't too bad. I was just doing still shots for catalogs mainly with nothing too exciting to wear. Dad really put his foot down on having to approve everything I would model.

I think mum found it hot when dad got all angry because she kept trying to get me to convince him to let me try some very racy stuff I know she would never let me wear. Things got more busy the summer after my fifth year. I made my "breakthrough."

Some posh woman with some posh boutique was doing a new school line and I was "perfect" for a section of it. I really wanted to say no. My agency had me practicing runway modeling since I signed but I never thought I'd actually need it. I figured it was like Potions something to survive through that I'd never need to use. I was going to refuse and I had dad on my side this time but then mum forbid me from becoming a runway model so I agreed to do it… Bloody mum, bloody Slytherins, bloody shoes, bloody dresses and bloody boutiques.

"That's how I ended up working as a model; now go to sleep you little terrors."


End file.
